


such selfish prayers and i can't get enough

by bottleredhead



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Bond is a BAMF, Don't mess with 00Q, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, and pissed off!Bond, basically this is tortured!Q, so is Q
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 05:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottleredhead/pseuds/bottleredhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels like a computer that's malfunctioned, able to only process two words, the rest of his binary data too damaged to acknowledge anything else. All the 0's and 1's he wields as a weapon have turned against him. He's a slave to faulty codes, and they seem to be stuck on maximising his torture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. this is as good a place to fall as any

Mekael was a smart man, as smart as they came. Being head of the Italian mob, he had to be.

But Mekael was also very, very stupid.

And he signed his death certificate when he kidnapped Q.

Oh, Bond would definitely like to sink his claws into the man, too.

But only after Q got done with him.

*

Pain. Cold. Pain. Cold.

He feels like a computer that's malfunctioned, able to only process two words, the rest of his binary data too damaged to acknowledge anything else. All the 0's and 1's he wields as a weapon have turned against him. He's a slave to faulty codes, and they seem to be stuck on maximising his torture.

Something's happening. Sluggishly, his mind realises that pressure is being applied under his face; a hand, raising his chin from where it rests on his chest, neck stretched painfully.

"Wake up, Q."

Something is placed gently on his face and suddenly the world which was a blur sharpens into relief. He can see the face of a grey-haired man, peering at him with mild curiosity and a hint of glee.

Opening his mouth to speak is useless. His throat feels like its been rubbed raw by an industrial-strength chimney scrubber.

"Don't speak, darling," the man smiles at him. It's disconcerting.

He's in some kind of sparsely furnished room, a wide, circular one with shiny parquet floors and wood paneling for walls. A fire is roaring merrily on the wall behind the man, yet its warmth fails to reach Q. He shivers.

The man is still smiling at him. "Now, Q, do you know who I am?"

Q tries to say _yes, I bloody know who you bloody are_.

The man seems to understand. "Ah, so you do know who I am. I must be honest, I'm surprised. I thought MI6 only dealt with immediate issues. And the Italian mob has been very careful - I've made sure of that."

That's the last Q hears from the man for a while. In his place is _pain_ and _more pain_.

*

He must have drifted off because when he wakes up, the chair he's tied to is stiff with dried blood (Q's) and his shirt and cardigan have been cut off him using hedge shears.

It hurts. Everything fucking hurts. His chest feels like it's been stampeded on by a heard of bulls, his back shredded from the titanium alloy whip he'd been struck with.

The worst of the worst are his fingers. He can feel the shapelessness of them, bent at awkward angles and fucking painful.

Lying brokenly in that bloody chair, he tries to remember the average retrieval date of MI6, trying to calculate how long it's been since he was taken. The room is windowless and it feels like it's been forever, though Q knows that's illogical. He can't think properly past the haze of agony that shocks his system every time he takes a breath - surely he's got a couple of broken ribs.

"Fuck," he manages to croak.

*

They come at night, bearing fire torches used for camping that burn his skin and singe his hair until he gags on the smell of festering flesh, the pain blinding. They use ill-sharpened pocket knives to draw parallel lines on the insides of his arms, lines that bleed as if they're weeping for him, for his predicament.

They come with salt that's ground into every fresh cut, stinging and _fuckinghellthathurts_. They taunt and touch and abuse and mark, rough men, goons that seem to be specialised in torture.

"Four D," Q whispers as they work on him.

One of the men stops pressing his cigarette into Q's neck long enough to ask, "What did he say?"

"Seventy-nine. Twenty."

This angers them, and they're extra vicious. He gets kicked in the head, snapping his glasses in two, followed by several disorganised kicks to his solar plexus.

He loses track of what they do to him, but his voice never falters.

"Six E. Sixty-one. Six D. Sixty-five. Twenty."

*

It becomes a little harder to keep track of what they're asking him when they start injecting him with some drug mix Q can't figure out. He knows his answers to all their questions are _no_ and _I don't know what you're talking about_.

"Seventy-three. Twenty. Four A."

*

The grey-haired man that Q remembers is called Mekael from his files back at MI6 comes back after two nights of endless torture interspersed with drug-induced sleep (if you can call the blurry stupor he found himself in more often than not sleep).

He's roused by a bucketful of ice-cold water. It washes away some of the blood coating his face.

"Good morning," Mekael says, a cheerful smile on his face.

"Four B. Sixty-five. Six E. Twenty-seven."

One of his torturers steps up from the doorway of the room. Q can make out the blurry shape of the man. "He's been saying that since the first night. Nonsense, it is."

More numbers, more letters.

It's a while before Mekael answers. "You fools, he's speaking in Hex."

Q fights the urge not to smile because hurrah, someone's figured it out. He did find it initially insulting that his torturers have enough IQ between them to power a tiny LED light. If you're going to kidnap a genius, at least don't hand him off to dimwits. That's such a cliche.

His amusement must show on his face because the mob leader is suddenly in his personal space. "Is this amusing to you, Q?"

"My name is Jeremy McKenzie," he rasps, throat still raw. "I don't know who Q is. I don't know what you're talking about."

It's the basic cover story every operative is made to memorise lest they're in a situation like this.

_My name is Jeremy McKenzie and I don't know what you're talking about. I have a cat called Atlas, I'm a graduate of Edinburgh. I have a girlfriend called Alexis. I'm planning on proposing to her come summer. She moved in with me last year of uni. I work at PwC as an auditor when I'm not busy studying for my post-grad degree._

Even as he recites the story in his mind, an alarm goes off somewhere in the vicinity of his brain, screaming _lie lie lie_.

_You're Q._

_But I was someone else before I was Q._

_That someone is dead. You're Q._

_I'm Q._

Refusing to answer Mekael's questions is punished by more drugs, a heady concoction that thunders through his veins, setting everything inside him on fire in its wake, making him drowsy and his limbs heavy.

The drugs do nothing to dull the pain. On the contrary, the seem to target his wounds, worse than rubbing salt into them. And so he bleeds, crumpled on a chair slick with his blood, bruised and broken.

"Sixty-nine. Seventy-three. Two E. Twenty. Forty-nine."

There's a clinical detachment to codes, Q has long come to realise, before he was Q, when he is Q, those moments when he becomes Jeremy McKenzie. Codes can't hurt you.

And so Q immerses himself in codes.


	2. i'm already on my knees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh, here comes Bond. ("Don't take what's mine." Tony Stark, anyone?) (And we all know Q belongs to Bond. And vice versa. Yup.)
> 
> Several allusions to other works in this chapter. Moriarty has a cameo appearance. So does our lovely Kat Bishop.

He's in Prague when he realises that something is wrong.

"007."

The voice in his ear is not the posh, calm tone of his Quartermaster but that of a timid intern.

"Where's Q?"

The intern sighs in his ear, as if she expected this question. "He's contacted a form of flu and has been confined to bed rest for the foreseeable future."

He frowns, fingers tightening on his martini. The answer sounds too rehearsed to be convincing; not to forget that Q wouldn't take a break from his job because of a simple flu. Bond can remember a time when most of Q branch had caught a horrible fever and taken leave of absence. Q had continued to stand at his sodding desk, voice stuffy as he directed Bond through his mission.

He wants to ask more questions but his target is on the move.

*

It takes two weeks for the job to be done, and by the time he's back at London he's got bruised ribs and body count three men higher than before he left.

"Moneypenny," Bond intones as the ex-field agent smiles nervously, waiting for him by the doors leading to Q branch.

Her eyes flit towards him and the entrance. "Bond. M wants to debrief you. I can return your equipment to Q branch, if you brought any back."

Blue eyes narrow. "M doesn't conduct debriefings. And you're not a secretary."

Eve's facade almost cracks. Almost. But being an operative of MI6, she merely maintains a stoic expression. "Q's been kidnapped two weeks ago. There aren't any leads."

*

Her words are like a punch to the stomach, knocking the breath out of his lungs. His world shifts off its axis until he's dizzy with confusion. The what, how, where, when want to roll off his lips in quick succession. His hands want to break something.

Flaring nostrils are the only physical reaction he allows. "M wants to debrief me, you said?"

*

M's office is as neat as ever. The man himself sits behind a graceful desk, some file or the other open before him for perusal. He doesn't look up when Bond walks into his office (James Bond doesn't barge, no matter how much the situation warrants it).

M's eyebrow rises. "007. I take it the Prague mission was successful?"

"It was. I've retrieved the hard drive with the names of the remnants of Silva's army. Their headquarters were unfortunately blown up."

Eve stifles a smile at Bond's derisive tone. _Unfortunately indeed._

Bond continues. "Q's been compromised?"

Eyeing him warily, M turns around the file he was reading so Bond can see it clearly. On one side is Q's picture, along with stills from grainy security footage of three men escorting the Quartermaster into a sleek, black Aston Martin. There doesn't seem to be any sign of force, but the tense set of Q's shoulders say it all. He's being taken against his will.

"No leads, no signs of force," M vocalises Bond's thoughts. "He left the Q branch late at night two weeks ago, didn't come in the next day or the day after that. All trackers placed on his person weren't active for three days. This footage was taken outside his apartment building from a surveillance camera installed by Q himself."

Bond takes in the information calmly, the only obvious sign of distress the infinitesimal whitening of his knuckles as they tighten on the handles of his chair. "Nothing else?"

M sighs, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes shut. "Three days after his kidnapping, one of Q's pre-programmed trackers activated. It signaled a position in southern France but the signal was too broken to be read properly."

"Impossible," argues 007. "Q's meticulous about his equipment's coding almost to a fault."

"It seems that metaphorical fault has finally proven to be his downfall. We haven't heard from Q since then. We have, however, received a message."

"From?"

"Someone named M," Even interjects, moving forward to hand Bond a sheaf of papers.

The first paper is plain white, with a few lines of what seems to be like code. The paper after that is a translation of the codes.

_"Tick tock, goes the clock._   
_And what now shall we play?_   
_Tick tock, goes the clock._   
_Now Q has gone away."_   
  
_-M_

He stares at the signature for a long while, the letter tickling something in the back of his mind. "M for Moriarty?"

"We thought so too," says M. "But Moriarty's been dead for a year. It's possible someone's using his moniker to generate fear. There have been other acts using "Moriarty" or "M" but we fear that's a Visily Romani."

"The urban legend?"

"Not quite. It's an alias used by anyone who intends to pull a rather ingenious heist, as with the Katerina Bishop incident. The point is, we fear "Moriarty" is being used as an alias, which makes things that much harder."

Bond snorts. "Of course Q's kidnapping would be so bloody difficult."

He gets pinned by M's stare. "That may be the case but we do need him back, preferably still functional. He _did_ design MI6's new security protocols, after all. The man has all of our information stored in his head. So find him, and as soon as possible."

*

Bond is in Q branch getting equipped by one of Q's protégés when it happens.

Suddenly, all the screens black out. A frightened hush falls over Q branch, and Bond knows that the same is happening throughout MI6.

A laughing calavera appears on the screen, its brightly coloured face in stark contrast against the black backdrop.

" _So Bond is back..._ " is typed out, letter by letter. " _Congratulations on not dying. Then again, that seems to be your specialty, 007_."

The words erase themselves.

" _Let's play a game, shall we? I've got something of yours and you have something I want_."

Crystal clear footage starts playing on the screens.

It's hard to discern what's happening for a moment or two before the camera zooms in. Q's form fills the screen.

The Quartermaster is tied to a chair, ankles and wrists bound with what seems to be bloodied metal chains. His mop of black hair is matted and greasy, falling over his eyes where his chin rests on his chest. His chest is bare, yet covered in bruises and cuts and burns - _and are those lacerations?_ His lower half is clad in dirty, black sweatpants.

The chair under Q is shiny with blood, a pool of it gathering underneath like a warped version of a fairy tale pond, glistening sinisterly.

A sound can be heard. As if reading his mind, the volume of the footage is turned up.

It's Q, and he's saying something. Springing to action, several interns start furiously scribbling down whatever it is he's saying. It sounds like nonsense to Bond, but he knows Q would never waste such a valuable opportunity.

"Four D. Seventy-nine. Twenty. Six E. Sixty-one. Six D. Sixty-five. Twenty."

His voice is broken. Something inside Bond's chest tightens.

"It's-" an intern tries to say but is hushed by another one.

" _Let me translate, as we all know code isn't your strong point, 007_ ," the words are being typed in a corner of the screen. " _My name is Jeremy McKenzie and I don't know what you're talking about. I have a cat called Atlas, I'm a graduate of Edinburgh.... and so forth. The basic cover story. So_ boring."

The footage continues for a few more minutes. Three men come in to the room where Q is kept soundlessly, unchaining him from his chair only to tie him to a post at the corner of the room. His arms are bound to a wooden slab at his sides so he looks like he's being crucified with his back to the camera.

The words continue. " _We're nearing the end, I suppose. As you can see, Q's rather busy at the moment._ "

Each word is accentuated by a lash of a whip and the hoarse, pained cries of Q. The barely-healed wounds on Q's back break, blood leaking weakly from the gashes.

The footage ends with a last cry from Q. Bond doesn't how hard he's gripping the edges of Q's desk until he feels a stabbing pain in his knuckles.

" _So, Bond. Are you ready to play?_ "

Whoever it is that kidnapped Q seems to be waiting for an answer. "Yes."

A smiley face. A fucking smiley face. " _Stand by for instructions. -M._ "

The screens fade to another laughing calavera.

And that's when all hell breaks loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys, thank you for your lovely support for this story so far! I do hope you liked this chapter.


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